survived the beach. still thinking A = asshole, not addict. small trigger warnings.

i just got back from a weeklong trip to Maui last night with my SABF, his mom & her husband. i am truthfully a little shocked. i expected him to fail this one. instead he passed with flying colors. i did not catch him eyefucking or being inappropriate throughout our trip. even when we went ziplining & there were a couple of very scantily clad 21 year olds climbing trees and swinging through the forest with us. i definitely did my best to act normal and not seem like i was watching, and be friendly to these two young women as i would be to anyone, but he did not seem to be overly staring or inappropriately engaging with them. even when the blond’s right boob was popping out for the last couple ziplines. um. what gives? i even took him to a nude beach yesterday (because i thought F your stuff, i want to be able to live my life without worrying about that and this is what i would do under normal circumstances because it feels good) and he seemed totally fine, as far as i could tell. we didn’t stay that long at the nude beach, because it was almost time to head to the airport, but he wasn’t staring at other naked women, he was focused on me, affectionate, playful, we hung out and had a good time…
btw, i don’t mean everything between us was perfect the whole trip, but from what i could tell there were no obvious “SA” type behaviors. we had a really good time overall.
now i am really extra confused. has he just gotten a LOT better at hiding his behavior? it’s hard to believe he could pull it off for a week straight. this is the guy that i’ve said “do you want me to get her number for you?” to on several occasions in the past. he has always been pretty slick on hiding the actual screwing around but not so much on the looking stuff. i am really trying to go with trusting my gut here and my gut tells me that there will be other signs coming soon – increased moodiness/irritability/distancing/sabotaging the relationship etc – if he is dealing with some stuff around this and starts projecting it on to me (that’s the usual pattern). i’ll keep paying attention.
in dialogue with my therapist, i have given it roughly until the end of 2013 to see how things go between us and whether there really seems to be potential for true growth. more and more i am sadly not sure, even if he is “sober”, whether this can be sustainable. i don’t know if i believe it is possible to have a really good relationship with an SA, at least with my SABF, because a good relationship = a good friendship, and a good friendship means you can trust each other and be open & vulnerable with each other. neither of us can really do that. him, because his entire being has been crafted on secrecy, silence, space and keeping people at arms length, and me because he doesn’t really have emotional capacity to key into, understand, or empathize with me. i know this may seem really obvious to more experienced sisters but more than a year into “sobriety” i see more and more clearly that narcissism is way more pervasive and destructive to a relationship than anything that can be managed by keeping your dick in your pants.